Flourless Chocolate Torte from Maria Emmerich

As you know, I was recently down in New Orleans to film a few segments of a local healthy cooking show. There, I got a chance to meet and hang out with one of my co-authors, Maria Emmerich of Maria’s Nutritious and Delicious Journal. If you don’t know Maria’s blog, you should. She not only creates mouthwatering low carb, gluten-free recipes, but as a nutritionist, she also goes into wonderful explanations of the health aspects behind various foods. And having met her in person, I can vouch for the fact that she’s funny, sweet and easy to talk to. We are both runners, so we talked at length about running and nutrition, and her thinking is very much in line with mine, that fat and protein is actually the best fuel, and carbs are unnecessary at best. I asked her to share her recipe for her AMAZING flourless chocolate torte (I tried it New Orleans, trust me, it’s awesome!), as well as go a little more in depth about low carb diets and running. Enjoy!

I get a lot of questions on how much fat is in my recipes. Why don’t I label it? Well, because fat is my source of energy. I even run marathons with this diet and I never ‘hit the wall.’

People often complain of low energy when they first start a low carb diet because they are “sugar-burners.” This is not only inefficient, but very detrimental to our health. For one reason, cancer LOVES sugar! This is why cancer patients drink a huge glass of glucose to see where the caner is in their body. Cancer feeds on sugar, if you eat more sugar, the more the cancer grows.

Energy actually comes from a chemical we produce in our body called adenosine triphosphate (ATP). We can produce energy 2 ways: anaerobic and aerobic. 1. Anaerobic (‘without oxygen’) bacteria break down glucose to produce energy. Our cells can use this method. 2. Aerobic (‘with oxygen’). All human and animal life requires oxygen to function.

*Please note that if you have a food allergy, you can’t absorb iron properly which will inhibit you from carrying oxygen to the mitochondria. This will cause exhaustion due to low ATP production along with other problems.

Energy Can Come From: 1. Glucose: created with carbohydrates and protein 2. Fats, both from the diet and from stored body fats 3. Ketones which are derived from the metabolism of fats

GLUCOSE and ENERGY = EAT PROTEIN Some cells, such as the kidneys have very little mitochondria so they don’t use fat for energy, so this is why eating protein for glucose is important. If we go too long without eating, we maintain glucose levels by breaking down glycogen in muscle proteins with a process called gluconeogenesis. BUT this is not healthy. There is a detrimental phenomena called SARCOPENIA where we lose 1% of our muscle every year starting at age 25, which is terrible because 1 pound of muscle burns 50 calories and 1 pound of fat burns only 2…even when we sleep!

So we don’t want to be cannibals to our muscles. Eating adequate amounts of protein will produce glucose (healthy carbs such as non-starchy veggies and almond/coconut flour will too). Our cells need a steady supply of protein to sustain a healthy structure. Any protein over and above 1 to 1.5 grams/kilogram of lean body weight/day can be used as a source of glucose. Anything less will cause you to start eating healthy muscle tissue. When you eat protein, you convert about 58% to glucose. So 100g of protein will produce 58 grams of glucose.

KETONES and ENERGY = EAT HEALTHY FATS So if you want to stop being a “sugar burner” you must derive energy from another source. Enter fat. When we start eating a healthy low carb diet, our bodies slowly switch from burning sugar to burning fat. This is where eating becomes an “art.” Energy must be derived from healthy fatty acids and ketones produced from foods such as coconut oil. At first the body will feel lethargic due to the mechanisms switching over; burning sugar is easy, burning fat takes a few days to adapt.

The brain prefers to use ketones instead of glucose for energy (in Alzheimer’s the brain can no longer convert glucose for energy, coconut oil is VERY healthy for these patients!).

Eating a very low carbohydrate diet stimulates the production of ketones from body fat; which is why people lose so much weight on this diet. Cutting out carbs and reducing protein also leads to a lower insulin level in the blood. A normal blood sugar is 1 TEASPOON of sugar in you blood. Many Americans consume over 63 teaspoons a day! If you can conquer a normal blood sugar, it reduces the problems associated with high insulin levels; insulin resistance, leptin resistance, high blood pressure, Metabolic Syndrome, weight gain, sleep issues…

Don’t eat just lean proteins! It is not tolerated well in our body. It leads to nausea in as little as three days. A high healthy fat diet, however, is the traditional diet to sustain for a lifetime. Eating only lean protein causes excess intake of nitrogen, which leads to hyperammonaemia, which is a build up of ammonia in the bloodstream and is toxic to the brain. Many traditional societies survived on a purely animal product diet, which was naturally high in fat…they didn’t have George Foreman Grills.

Our paleo ancestors actually consumed more fat than protein; with a ratio of about 80% calories from fat and 20% from protein. During prolonged periods of starvation or something such as marathon running, fatty acids are converted into ketones, the preferred energy source for highly active tissues like those found in the heart and muscles. Ketones provide a long lasting energy to all cells with mitochondria. Ketones are used to generate ATP. If you use glucose for energy, it needs the intervention of bacteria, ketones can be used directly.

*Note: Using a quality REAL salt is also essential for electrolyte balance. We start skipping the salt and we get low energy. I’m not talking about pre-packaged and fast food junk salt. A Celtic Sea Salt filled with minerals will help with energy.

My tip is to make this in a pie or cake pan (lined with parchment paper and greased well) and under-bake it just a touch. Let it cool and cut into individual servings to store in the freezer for 'portion control'. When a craving strikes, take your little piece of heaven out and warm in the oven or microwave for about 20 seconds just until 'gooey and melty' top with a dollop of cream cheese frosting!...oh my!

Nutritional Disclaimer

Please note that I am not a medical or nutritional professional. I am simply recounting and sharing my own experiences on this blog. Nothing I express here should be taken as medical advice and you should consult with your doctor before starting any diet or exercise program.I provide nutritional information for my recipes simply as a courtesy to my readers. It is calculated using MacGourmet software and I remove erythritol from the final carb count and net carb count, as it does not affect my own blood glucose levels. I do my best to be as accurate as possible but you should independently calculate nutritional information on your own before relying on them.I expressly disclaim any and all liability of any kind with respect to any act or omission wholly or in part in reliance on anything contained in this website.

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Comments

Good stuff! I completely agree with your writings, but I assume it’s intentional that you leave out the “controversial” idea of saturated fats being healthy. Like you said, our ancestors ate lots of fat, and lots of that fat was from animals and beautifully saturated. I don’t think there was a whole lot of olive mashing back in the day. 🙂 Now everyone is afraid of ketones because they think it’ll cause kidney damage. Sad. Keep up the good work!

Thanks for this post and recipe! Looks heavenly. Sounds like y’all had a great time in New Orleans. I’m still trying to understand how low carb one needs to go to switch from using glucose to using ketones for energy. i.e. 30g carbohydrate per day? 100g carbohydrate per day? Thanks!!

I made this today, it’s in the oven now, and it doesn’t seem to be cooking well. I used coconut oil, and when letting the chocolate mixture cool, it got a little chunky. I wisked in the eggs one by one, but that didn’t help. I just peaked at it after 15 min in the oven, and the oil seems to have separated and the edges are boiling. Maybe I should have used butter.

Hi Shannon…when I adapted the recipe for brownies, I had a bit of the same problem, but the end result was AWESOME. And I saw Maria make this New Orleans and it definitely had oil boiling on the sides and it still turned out amazingly. So I’d say give it a chance and let me know what happens.

I just got finished making this, and am so disappointed! 🙁 I didn’t line my springform with foil. When I peeked in after about 15 minutes, precious coconut oil was dripping out of the bottom like a faucet! It definitely overcooked/dried out, and is more like a cake. I’ll definitely try again with foil tightly lining the pan!

Holy Moly! I just finished this and I tell you what… it is fantastic! Sooo easy to put together, minimal ingredients and thus minimal dirty things to clean, and wow is it good. It’s like when you used to order dessert at a fancy restaurant and could barely get through half the piece because it’s so rich. This is going to be my go-to recipe for all occasions that call for a chocolatey dessert: you know… any day that ends in y. Seriously SERIOUSLY fabulous. I can’t get over it really.

I really want to make this for a low carb thanksgiving dessert, but I can’t find erythritol, swerve, or stevia glycerite in any grocery store nearby. Do you know if it would be possible to just use baking stevia instead?

I think you are going to end up with something really bitter if you just use stevia. Erythritol comes in a brand name called Truvia, can you find that? You will need to look at how much Truvia equals how much sugar, though. Not sure of the conversion.

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